


My Freedom Looks Like You

by pennywife



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Ending, Angst and Tragedy, Bisexual Female Character, Canon Rewrite, Canon-Typical Violence, Cheating, Disturbing Themes, Enemies to Lovers, Explicit Sexual Content, Extremely Dubious Consent, Forced Marriage, Hate Sex, Implied/Referenced Torture, Imprisonment, Lies, Miscarriage, Multi, Murder, POV Margaery Tyrell, Pain, Prostitution, Unrequited Lust
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-08
Updated: 2020-07-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:15:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24615889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pennywife/pseuds/pennywife
Summary: Margaery lifts her chin when at last the guard meets her eyes, and thinks, him. Whoever that man is up there, I think I want him.
Relationships: Joffrey Baratheon/Margaery Tyrell, Sandor Clegane/Margaery Tyrell
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17





	1. I Will Love You Until

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so, how to explain this fic lol. Basically I had the idea of “What if Margaery Tyrell had just been like a massively unlikable, selfish piece of shit,” and “what if The Hound had never abandoned his post” and then this thing was born. Anyways Margaery is basically an OC at this point, like she seems relatively harmless in this chapter but eh storm’s coming and it’s gonna start out a bit crack-y and lighthearted but things are gonna get angsty and dark soon enough. Lots of violent, sad, troubling, weird, sexual, dark, and odd content ahead... Also please don’t take this too seriously or set your expectations too high, I’m really just having fun doing what I like, which is writing extremely imperfect characters so yeehaw let’s go

When word of Renly Baratheon’s untimely murder had snaked its way through the tents of the Stormlands, the widowed queen Margaery had done everything she could to keep herself from smiling. Her pretty jaw had clenched so tight she could hear her teeth squeak like rats chittering in her ears. Her eyes squeezed suddenly closed, and though she began to weep, not a soul around her could tell that the tears that made their way down over her cheeks were not tears of sadness, but tears of _unrivaled joy._

For you see, Margaery had told herself that without Renly, she would finally be free to do as she pleased. She had told herself that she would never again be forced to confine herself to a lord or a prince that she did not want ever again for the rest of her days. 

It is only now, back home in the palace of Highgarden, that she realizes how foolish a thing her hope had once been. 

“I don’t want him,” she says firmly, and straightens her spine in her chair. “I don’t want Joffrey. I want to go to Dorne, or to Qarth, or to somewhere beautiful surrounded by beautiful things, where I can do as I please without anyone looking to the man by my side to be told what to do.” 

Margaery’s family sits in a half-moon before her, their faces painted with the light of the mid morning sun and the shadows of the bushes that grow high at the edge of the courtyard. Her father, her grandmother, and her brother alike all look to her with exasperation gleaming pink in the whites of their eyes. 

“I won’t marry him,” she repeats. “I won’t.”

Her father, Lord Mace of House Tyrell, shakes his head with all the impatience of a man who’s never had to wait for a thing in his life. 

“It is your duty as my daughter to do as I tell you,” he states, with a mask of authority as transparent as unpainted glass. “You will marry King Joffrey, and that will be the end of it.” 

“I’ll hop on a ship then. I’ll go to Dorne, and I’ll work in a brothel.” 

With that the deep lines of the old lord’s face pull furiously together. He leans forward in his seat and glares, his skin heating up a blistering red. “I’ll not have my only daughter galavanting to the edge of the earth to— to—!”

“To what, dear father? Hm? To do as I please? To not be… sold again and ridden by a man I’ve never met like some useless old broodmare?” 

“I’ve heard you rather enjoy being ridden by men you’ve never met,” Loras mumbles under his breath. 

“Funny.” Margaery smiles pleasantly, “I can say precisely the same for you.” 

Suddenly Mace slams his fists down onto the edge of the table before him, rattling the beautiful dishes and knocking the lid down from one of the tea-kettles. “Enough of you!” He commands, and looks between the two of them with unveiled disappointment. 

Leaning back into her seat, Margaery raises the edge of her fist to her mouth to keep from smirking. She drops her eyes down to the floor, reveling in the rise she’s managed to bring out from her tempered old father. She listens to the heavy breaths that flow in and out from his lungs, ready to strike him down with words if he should dare again try and tell her what she must do. 

To her surprise, it is her grandmother Olenna who finally breaks the silence. 

“I fear you and I have been far too ambitious, my son,” the old woman says resignedly, and then quirks an unreadable smile. 

It catches Margaery’s attention in an instant. She looks up to search the features of her face before searching her father’s, finding both of them empty and plain.

A huff of air blows out from her nostrils.

“What—” she begins, and readjusts herself in her seat, “wh-what do you mean by that?” 

Olenna doesn’t answer. Instead she merely offers her son another odd, yet knowing glance. 

“They say to never plant your seeds all in one plot...”

“Oh don’t be cryptic,” sneers Margaery. “Just tell me what you mean.” 

The matriarch offers a disinterested shrug. “Truly it’s nothing, dear. I only mean that— well, perhaps your father and I were a bit too presumptuous in our plans for you. After all, there _are_ other ways to join our two houses. Ways that wouldn’t involve such… _volatile_ factors.” 

When at last Margaery catches the meaning behind Olenna’s words, her eyes widen with sudden offense. 

“You don’t think I could handle it,” she reasons, her cheeks darkening with embarrassment. “You don’t think I could be queen.”

“Oh, darling, it’s not a matter of what I think; it’s a matter of what I undoubtedly _know._ After all, I mean— You?” Olenna narrows her brows and lets out a laugh. “Margaery Tyrell, Queen of the Seven Kingdoms? Why, I could scarcely even imagine it.”

Pride floods through its way through the young woman’s veins, feeling wholefully insulted at her grandmother’s words. She crosses her arms and lets her jaw hang open empty, unable to think of a way to defend herself even when Olenna continues to prattle on. 

“A queen in King’s Landing… You’d die of boredom in a matter of weeks! Lying about all day in your silks; nothing more to do than eat and drink yourself silly with wine and—”

“Fine then,” Margaery interrupts. “I’ll do it.” 

Olenna’s smile widens, and she dips her head towards her son. 

  
  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  


It isn’t until the day she’s standing squarely in the pews of The Red Keep that Margaery wonders if perhaps she may have been duped. 

She’s never seen the king before. His eyes are crooked, but they’re light and far from one another like her own. He looks young— young and small, just like Renly. 

At her side stands her lord father, his nervousness palpable enough that it makes her own heartbeat quicken in her chest. He’d begged her not to wear this dress, a slit so long and wide it reaches the space above her navel; and now she regrets wearing it as well. She wonders if the king can see her pulse rattling through her ribcage like the skin stretched over a drum. 

She worries that he’ll accept her. She worries that he won’t. She worries that her brother may choke to death on his own words as he kneels before the base of the throne, appealing to the king’s noble heart with lies of her innocence and purity. Margaery hasn’t been anything resembling pure since she was hardly more than a child, but her grandmother tells her that it shouldn’t matter. After all, she’s certainly no stranger to telling the men in her bed that their time together was her first. 

Before she knows it Loras is looking to her, ready for her to speak. 

“I have come to love you from afar,” Margaery lies with such ease it would make even her grandmother proud, and at first the boy king is unable to accept. 

He has been promised to another, King Joffrey says, a beautiful girl with rose-colored hair and skin as fair as milk; but his mother frees him with tales of betrayal. He turns back to Margaery, happily, and accepts her hand as he speaks of her beauty and grace. 

Margaery smirks to herself, for though she may certainly be a beautiful girl, she has never once been accused of having any grace. 

“You will be my queen, and I will love you from this day, until my last day.” King Joffrey’s words ring out like bells. They’re quite beautiful, but they’re only for show, only so that people can hear them. 

His business in the room draws painfully on. 

Now that his words no longer concern her, Margaery lets her eyes wander the faces of the guards that stand tall beside the throne. She wonders, curiously, just how long it will be until she breaks her vows. 

Her father’s hand comes to rest on her shoulder, and Margaery tilts her head to offer him a smile. 

“Wasn’t that proposal _romantic,_ father?” The young woman whispers with a voice both gentle and spoiled with blatant sarcasm, and Mace’s hand falls suddenly away from her. 

Joffrey’s speech carries on, business of things that Margaery couldn’t bother to care to hear, and with no end in sight she looks to the presence of the Kingsguard once more. Her head fills with daydreams of golden beaches with oceans made of burgundy wine, thoughts of freedom plaguing her until her attention rests on one of the guards she hadn’t paid notice to only a moment before. 

From the time that Margaery was only a child, she had always rejected the idea of love at first sight. She knows that there is more to a man than the way that he looks; than the rippling of his muscles or the dimple of his chin, and so even now as the stranger before her steals the breath from her lungs, she knows it cannot be that. 

_It’s lust,_ she thinks, as her eyes trace the black of his own and the monstrous scar that soils the half of his face. _He’s the biggest, most frightening man I’ve ever seen in my life, and I want him to tear open my—_

“Someday you will be glad for the things that I do for you,” murmurs Mace. His voice is hardly anything more than a whisper when he tilts his head down towards his daughter’s ear, but it rips her free from her thoughts all the same.

“And someday you’ll be dead,” Margaery says through her teeth as she pulls her lips into a smile. “Isn’t life peculiar?” 

She stares intently at the guard, hoping for him to somehow notice her and remember her face for later. Men like him, men who other women cower and shy away from; they always love the company of highborn women such as herself. 

“I don’t know what you want from me, child.” Her father whispers again, and Margaery rolls her eyes in distaste. “I give you love… you do not want it. I give you guidance… and you shut your eyes right in front of me. I give you gifts, I make you queen… and none of it is ever enough… So I ask you, dear child… what _is it_ that you want? What could I do to ever make you happy?” 

Margaery’s lips pull out into a thin red line, like a fresh cut that hasn’t yet become blossomed with blood. 

She does not answer her father, for even if she wanted to, she wouldn’t truly know how. All those sorcerers and priestesses and witches of dark woods who had promised to be able to tell her anything in this world with only the right price, and yet not a single one of them had been able to keep their promise when asked the most simple question of all. 

_“What do I want?”_ She’d ask, and their mouths would all hang empty. _“What is it that will make all my torture, all my carelessness, all my incessant yearning come to an end?”_

Even still, Margaery lifts her chin when at last the guard meets her eyes, and thinks, _him. Whoever that man is up there, I think I want him._


	2. To the Brothel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Margaery tries to introduce herself to the Hound, as well as gather some useful information about the things he enjoys.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m really gonna try to play around with character growth in this fic but at this point ‘Margaery’ is a lowkey train wreck and she will continue to behave in selfish/immoral ways for quite a while so if you get easily annoyed by unapologetically flawed characters then boy is this not the one for you lol. Major warnings for triggering content throughout. Demeaning language and prostitution in this chapter, so if stuff like that bothers you please don’t read any further! <3

Margaery realizes rather quickly that no matter of wanting will ever be enough to bring that guard into her bed on its own. As alluring as she may be, she is certain that he will never approach her without some manner of provocation; and if there is anything that the future queen enjoys about seducing a man, it is most assuredly the _chase._ On one rare evening when she finds herself alone in the dark halls of the castle without the accompaniment of her betrothed, she decides it time to properly introduce herself. 

The young Tyrell follows the guard as he turns a sharp corner, his thick fingers curled around the grip of his weapon. Her eyes fill with stars at the sight of him walking so closely in front of her, the rolling waves of his mighty shoulders and his raven-feather hair. She steadies her gaze down over the breadth of his back and finds that he does not adorn the gilded colors that the other members of the kingsguard so proudly wear, but instead only a stark white cloak wrapped around the neck of his dark and heavy armor. 

Margaery finds herself pleased by that, for perhaps there is a reason for it. Perhaps his loyalty does not run as deeply as the others, and perhaps this will be far easier than she had thought. 

When her footsteps fall too heavy on the marbled floor, the guard turns swiftly around to face her. His dark eyes crinkle into a glare, a silent snarl etched in his lips that would make any other man cower in fear. 

Instead Margaery only just smiles, and graciously offers out a hand towards him. “Hello there. My name is Margaery, and I—”

The massive guard bares the blunt ends of his slowly-rotting teeth and whips back around before she can even finish her sentence. He lumbers off wordlessly down the rest of the hall, leaving her all alone to stand dumbly in place. 

“If it’s the good grace of the kingsguard you’re looking to find, then I’m afraid you’re wasting your time talking with that one.”

Margaery feels the color rise in her cheeks. She swivels her head to find the youngest son of Tywin Lannister tucked away in a dim nook of the castle wall, a goblet of wine and a leather bound book held between his fingers. She drops her arm back down to the front of her waist, but she doesn’t feel as ashamed as she had only a moment ago. No matter how ignorant it may be, she does not care for the judgment of Tyrion the imp. 

“That guard,” Margaery asks, “what is his name?” 

“That, my lady, is Sandor Clegane— or the Hound, as he has so lovingly been nicknamed.”

“The Hound,” she repeats, enjoying the taste of his name in her mouth. Her eyes narrow as she takes a step forward. “Is he..?”

“Brutish? Ugly? Murderous? Unkind?” Tyrion chuckles to himself before taking a long sip from his drink. “The Hound is many things— each one of them more terrible than the last.”

Margaery smirks. “And why do they call him the Hound?”

“I used to think it was because of the smell,” Tyrion jokes cruelly. “As it turns out, it is due to his ferocious and unquestionable loyalty to the king,” he reiterates, glancing up from his page to meet the eyes of his nephew’s intended. 

“So when I marry King Joffrey, he’ll be loyal to me as well, I presume?” 

Tyrion doesn’t answer that. Instead he only just smiles, both politeness and something unreadable glimmering in the emerald rings of his eyes. 

“You are very pretty,” he says, after some time. “I’m sure you and the king will be immensely happy together.” 

Margaery offers the Lannister a parting nod before leaving to head back towards her own bedchamber. On her way there she turns on her heel, hoping to see just one last glimpse of the Hound before drifting off to sleep, but he isn’t anywhere to be found. 

She may not have won his favor yet, but she refuses to let herself feel disappointed just as she refuses to give up her pursuit. 

After all, men can be such timid creatures. Even a man like that, one who looks as if he could cut a bull in half with one blow of his sword, will always have some manner of fear when it comes to fucking a woman who’s been promised to a king. The price of Margaery’s cunt may very well be his head on a spike. 

  
  
  


* * *

  
  


The very next morning, once she’s been bathed and brushed and dressed by a stout-looking servant girl, an idea slithers its way into Margaery’s mind. 

She seeks out her betrothed in his throne room, looking small in the wake of his royal iron seat. His jaw rests on one of his fists, his dull eyes widening once he recognizes her face. He greets her warmly, happily; but there’s something in his smile that always feels like a warning. 

Margaery, however, has never paid much attention to warnings, and so she smiles lovingly when Joffrey takes her hands tight into the embrace of his own. There are no calluses on his palms or scars from war, only skin as soft as her own. 

They speak together for a moment, only niceties, only perfumed words, for as of now neither of them know just how terrible the other can truly be. They are both masks, only the idealized versions of what they want the other to see.

“I want to go for a walk,” says Margaery, once the king has settled back down into his throne. “I’ve never visited the city. I would like to see it for myself.” 

“And I would be pleased to join you,” Joffrey begins, and the future queen’s breath stills in her chest, “but it seems I have a great deal of matters to attend this evening.” 

“Actually, your grace, I was—”

“The Mountain will join you.” 

He flicks his fingers towards the enormous guard standing at his side. Margaery pauses for a moment, studying the shape of his face, before concluding that his name and his size must be of no coincidence— and that he must be related to the Hound himself. 

“I thought perhaps I could visit it alone,” murmurs Margaery, and the king laughs as if she had just told a grand old joke. 

“Go,” Joffrey orders, and stretches languorously in his seat. “And make it quick,” he adds. “You will be joining us tonight for dinner.” 

  
  
  


* * *

  
  


The Mountain follows Margaery closely as she ventures through the city of King’s Landing. He towers nearly a foot and a half over her head, a mighty giant ready to cut down any foe who should ever try to stand in their way. 

Growing up in Highgarden Margaery’s family had never been one to make many enemies. There were never threats to her safety the way that there are in this strange new place, and though she may be too naive to realize the horrors the smallfolk would inflict upon the betrothed of King Joffrey, she is smart enough to feel safe with the man at her side. 

Her footsteps slow over the cobblestone as she nears her destination. She tries her best to seem enthralled with her surroundings; of drying laundry stretched between old buildings and merchants selling fruit in the streets. She takes in the almost fresh air and the warmth of the evening sun, anything she can to make it seem as if she did not come out here solely for a reason. 

“There’s someone in here I would like to speak with,” Margaery states, trying not to squint when she cranes her neck to look her guard in the eye. “You can wait here if you’d like; it will only be just a moment.” 

The Mountain glances to the silken doorway behind her, an upscale brothel run by the master of coin. His broad face remains cold, but he lets out a snort of air in amusement. 

Margaery raises up the hood of her cloak and ventures her way inside. 

Before she even reaches a few steps across the room a redheaded prostitute stops her in her tracks. The woman moves her fiery hair from one shoulder to the other, her large rings sparkling like scales of a fish as they dance through her locks. 

“Hello there, beautiful,” she purrs, cocking her head and swaying, “We don’t get many in here who look like you…” 

Margaery reaches up to pull her hood back away from her head, and as soon as the light casts on her face the woman’s demeanor suddenly changes. 

“I’m here to ask about someone,” Margaery says quietly, “his name is Sandor Clegane.” 

“The Hound,” the woman offers, and her shoulders stiffen by her sides. 

“What can you tell me of him?” 

“I’m afraid I… I’m afraid I don’t quite—” 

“What does he like?” Margaery leans in closer. “When he comes here, who does he sleep with?” 

The prostitute's smile falters, her eyebrows pull closer together. 

“Does he like big women? Small women?” The Tyrell questions on, “Is he rough? Gentle? Selfish? Quick? Does he pay for threesomes? Foursomes? Redheads? Men?” 

“If the Hound had ever visited this place,” the prostitute smiles resignedly, “I would certainly be able to tell you.” 

“He doesn’t come here?” 

“I’m afraid not, your grace.” She locks her hands together firmly in front of her silken robe. “Between you and I, I can’t say I’ve ever heard of the Hound visiting any brothels anywhere in King's Landing.” 

Disappointed, Margaery frowns. It isn’t what she had expected to hear. She had expected, upon coming to this place, to find out every one of the Hound’s preferences and proclivities so that she may someday use that knowledge to her advantage. Instead she’d found nothing, and she cannot understand what kind of unwed man does not pay for the accompaniment of beautiful women.

“Thank you for your time,” Margaery digresses. She hands the prostitute a golden coin.

“All this for a simple question?” 

“No,” Margaery smiles, and tosses the woman a second coin every bit as valuable as the first. “This is for the question,” she raises her hood and dips her head over towards a bare-chested blonde standing near the corner beside them. “The rest,” she says, and reaches out to take the blonde’s hand into her own, “is for your discretion.”

  
  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  


Brothels are no strange place for the young Tyrell, no more than her many affairs had whilst promised to powerful men, but with her marriage to the king himself marching soon on the horizon, it feels even more salacious than ever. 

The prostitute she’d chosen is younger than Margaery, more plump, with wheat-colored hair and skin that gleams with oil when she takes off her dress. Her breasts are wide and heavy with nipples like the petals of pink roses. Margaery touches them gently, weighing them in her hands before sucking them into her mouth. When she grows bored of playing with the whore girl’s breasts she lies on her back and raises her gown. She tells her then, with all the grace of a future queen, to lick her cunt until she screams. 

Of course, it doesn’t take long. She finishes quickly, and once it’s all over she lies breathless on her back as the whore curls in tight in her arms. 

“Do you know who I am?” Margaery asks, curiously; too tired to pull on her clothes. She knows it is unwise to keep her guard waiting outside for much longer, and knows that soon it will be time for her dinner with her future husband, but like with all consequences that often await her, she cannot yet find it in herself to care. 

“You’re the Queen Margaery.” 

“I’m not queen _yet,”_ she corrects, and the blonde lays her head over her chest. “But you have heard of me,” she purses her lips. “I suppose you must hear many things in a place like this… So tell me then... What have you heard of the king?” 

“The king slaughters babies.”

Margaery freezes. “And who told you that?” 

The whore hesitates as well. Something rests on her tongue, but it’s clear in her eyes that she’s too afraid to say it aloud. 

“The smallfolk do not favor him,” Margaery reasons. “Nor do they favor me.” 

“No,” agrees the pleasure girl, stupid and brave. “They do not.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading! I know this sort of fic definitely isn’t for everyone but I’m having fun while I’m here and life is short but also insufferably long so why not write the weird and unnecessary fics we want to see in this world am I rigHT


End file.
